turnips, tomatoes and more

When I netted over the brassicas I forgot that I had some turnips growing there as well. I took back the net to do some weeding today and found a clump of oversized turnips all squashed together. They are supposed to be best picked at tennis ball size but you can see that mine got a bit past that! Let’s just hope they are not too tough and woody or they’ll be going on the compost heap.

Each year I try to grow at least one new tomato variety. This year I chose black cherry which is very prolific with up to twenty fruits per truss. Nice and juicy and sweet but the skins are thick which is a negative for me. They are also not as black as I was expecting...just a dark red.

Black Cherry tomatoes

Today was nice and sunny after all the recent rain so there was lots to catch up on. A couple of weeks ago I pruned the cherry tree and some of the shrubs so I had a pile of stuff to put through the shredder. End result: a tub of chopped material which can be used either as a mulch or get mixed with grass clippings and seaweed to make compost. The bigger bits take a while to rot down but I always sieve my compost and return the un-rotted material to the pile.

These cattle-lick tubs are very useful and come in a range of sizes although this 100kg size is a beggar to shift if it's full of soil or compost. If you know a friendly local farmer see if you can scrounge a few!